


Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

by ElizabethDurham



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethDurham/pseuds/ElizabethDurham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond reflects on what Q has been for him, what he did for him, and how he loves him.<br/>Thanks to thedoctorisaconsultinghunter for the idea!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

James Bond hadn’t been to his own flat in, god, had it really been a year? A year since he had met Q. Since he had given in. Since he had stopped worrying about what was right, or even what was easy. Since he had started worrying about what love was, and what caring was, and what it was to have a home to come back to.  
Coming home to Q’s flat, layered in computer fiber-optics, geek paraphernalia, books, cushy blankets, and, well, Q himself; Bond wasn’t particularly emotional, but he knew when he had found something that was worth hanging on to.  
“Bond? Is that you?” Q was predictably at his computer, typing away, his long fingers flying like fish darting in and out of the waves, stirring up the water.  
“Who else would it be? Your bloody security wouldn’t allow anyone else in, would it?” Bond called back fondly, dropping his keys by the door and stopping for a moment just to stare at his lover. His quartermaster. His Q.  
“It would allow M,” Q pointed out, ever a stickler for details.  
“And M makes it a habit to pop around other people’s flats,” Bond replied dryly.  
“No, that’s your job, isn’t it,” Q mused, eyes never breaking contact with the screen that was literally the seat of his power.  
“You could always ask me to leave.”  
“Never,” Q’s whisper was barely audible, but James Bond was James Bond, and he heard it clear as day.  
There had been days, there had been years, where Bond wondered why he bothered continuing. When he wondered if all he would have to show for himself, when the curtain finally closed, would be a lifetime of scars and a funeral in an unmarked casket, buried without ceremony by people who barely knew him. It was a lonely life, the world he had chosen, where you were known by a number. 007. A reputation. Where people flitted in and out of your life like butterflies. Like Vesper.  
“Bond, don’t think about it,” Q muttered, and Bond blinked.  
“I know every line and dip and curve of your face, James. Of course I can tell what you’re thinking.”  
Bond smiled, banishing Vesper to the back of his mind in favor of the black-haired boy sitting on the carpet with his back against their modern-looking couch. Bullet-proof, of course,  
“I’m flattered,” was all he said, walking over and taking up his usual perch behind Q, taking up the entire couch with his legs stretched out over the farthest armrest, head propped up on an elbow above the other.  
It was not that Bond hadn’t been without friends. He had counted the old Q a friend, or at least a close acquaintance. He had a sneaking suspicion M was rather fond of him, and then there were all the women, all the wonderful, beautiful, impossible women. But they were just butterflies. Disposable pleasures. It was Bond’s fortune to walk alone, striding away from an explosion with eyes cast forward as the past burned behind. That was his roll in life, and he played it well.  
Until a gangly, pretentious, brilliant, impossible man met him in an art Gallery and talked of the old meeting the new, and Bond had responded bluntly, as was his custom, knocked off balance by the one thing he hadn’t expected: someone who dared to challenge the image Bond had made for himself, the roll he was compelled to play. Q saw a man behind the trigger. A man Bond had almost forgotten was there.  
“Bed?” he asked, an hour later, when he had finished cleaning his gun and re-assembling its various parts. Q made a noncommittal noise from below him, which Bond had long ago learned to interpret as, ‘in a moment.’ He reached for a deck of cars sitting on the side-table, setting out a game of solitaire, his thoughts still far away.  
It wasn’t that Bond had no heart, no, nothing so melodramatic, but it was difficult to maintain some sense of self while the organization you worked for, the people who you fought against, the people you worked with, were constantly trying to strip it away. It was easier to send a man out to die if you didn’t have to say his name, if he was a number and not a heart, a mind, a living human being. It was easier to seal a body bag if you didn’t have to see the face inside it.  
But Q saw names. He could open his computer and find all that you had to hide in a moment; he could rip you open and stare through your soul. And he did. That was what stunned Bond each and every time. Q cared enough to know the people who placed their lives in his hands. He heard a husband behind 003, a wife behind 001.  
There was nothing behind 007. Not an address, not a family, nothing. When 007 returned from a mission, it was like he was lost. He drifted. Until that same gangly, bespectacled man had seen something in Bond he decided was worth saving. Something worth bringing home, and giving a glass of port to, and escorting to bed, taking the couch for himself. Q had given Bond a home, had given Bond something besides the blood and the dust and the screams. Q had reminded his agent that some things are worth the risk, that sometimes coming back and coming home are not the same thing.  
About a month after their first night together, Q had given James a children’s book, ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ There was a page bookmarked, and a single line highlighted in bright yellow. James kept the book beside his bed – their bed – and repeated that single line to himself whenever he felt as though James was being swept away:  
“Not all those who wander are lost.”


End file.
